A new study shows a rapid rise in the correlation between injected drugs and HIV/AIDS.

ISLAMABAD:

One in three intravenous drug users (IDU) in Rawalpindi has HIV, up from just 2.7% in a five-year span, a report revealed on Saturday.

As many as 201 IDUs at 40 different spots in the city were interviewed and tested during an assessment conducted by Nai Zindagi Trust (NZT), a non-governmental organisation working to minimize the threat of HIV spreading among IDUs. The study was sponsored by Mainline Foundation and the Netherlands Foreign Affairs Ministry.

A similar assessment by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2007 had put the prevalence of HIV among IDUs in Rawalpindi at 2.7%, while an assessment by NZT in collaboration with the Punjab AIDS Control Programme (PACP) in 2009 found it had risen to 28%.

Another troubling statistic is that around a quarter of the survey participants started injecting drugs before they were even 18. Almost a third (32.8%) started shooting up between the ages of 18 and 24, while another 22.9% started using injectable drugs between 25 and 30.

Most of the survey participants were between 18 and 30 years old, with only 6% aged 44 or above.

Most of the respondents can be considered locals, with 66.8% of the participants having been born in the city, and another 18.6% having migrated to Rawalpindi at least five years ago. The others had moved there more recently.

Social markers

Although 44.2% of the IDUs had no education at all, 44.6% had between one and eight years of schooling. Some did have greater access to education, with 2.6% of the respondents holding Masters degrees.

Half of the participants had incomes greater than Rs10,000 a month, while 47.3% made between Rs5,000 and 10,000. Most of those surveyed work as labourers (35.5%), while 16.9% are beggars, 4.5% deal drugs, 3.5% are pickpockets, and another 19.4% do odd jobs.

A quarter of the respondents (24.5%) are married, while 61.5% are unmarried, with the remainder being divorced, separated or widowed. A third of them live either in graveyards or on the streets, while 5.5% live in abandoned buildings.

Sewage lines, abandoned buildings, graveyards and shrines are also the favoured locations for shooting up, along with parks, under bridges, fields and at home.

General health

Almost all (91%) admitted to injecting drugs in groups, with 40.3% of them “often” sharing syringes and 2.5% “always” doing so. Only 22.9% said they never shared needles, with 33.8% saying they “rarely” did it. Incidentally, fellow IDUs are a popular source for getting syringes, with 46.8% claiming this source, and 6.5% admitting to relying on non-IDU sources.

When asked if they kept the entry point clean, in the last six months 14.9% of the participants had abscesses and wounds where they injected once, 11.9% twice and 6.5% thrice.

Nearly half (47%) had no awareness of HIV or AIDS, while those that did, listed friends and newspapers as their main sources of information on the subject.

Some of them have already had serious health issues, with 21.9% of the respondents having undergone major surgery, while 33.3% had suffered from jaundice, and others had reported tuberculosis, asthma, fits and mental disorders. In addition, 19.4% have undergone minor surgeries.

Nearly half (44%) have received medical treatment for drug dependence, with 37.5% saying they feel an “extremely urgent” need for medical treatment, and another 55 per cent admitting to an “urgent” need for treatment.

Most respondents (79.4%) also have a history of being arrested, mostly on drug-related charges. Apart from the 13.4% charged with selling drugs, another 61.7% were arrested for possession of drugs. One in five respondents were arrested for violent crimes, with 1.5% charged with murder. Others were booked for theft, robbery, pick-pocketing and fraud.

Alas the only comment I can make is that our society is FUBARed in every way possible – the taboo and stigma related to false concepts of “honor” mean that AIDS is a dirty dirty word, and thus any discussion on it is outside acceptable norms for our citizens. In a civilized society active steps would be taken to fight diseased like AIDS/HIV, but we prefer to see no evil/hear no evil/speak no evil, until the evil overwhelms us. How long before the HIV from these drug users seeps into society through barbers and dentists and mother-child transmission and sexual vectors?

Interestingly, another even more glaring example of our willful blindness causing SEVERE issues is the extreme prevalence of inbreeding practiced through centuries if Muslim procreation, which has had devastating results on our mental and physical development as a people.

Is it possible that the numbers are not 5 times now. Just that the democratic government is sharing true numbers unlike the dictator who was hiding true facts from Pakistanis. Once a problem is acknowledged it can be resolved. In India to the AIDS crisis was huge but openly confronting it and engaging a full public awareness campaign which was led by several well known film stars helped to first stop the crisis and then reverse it.

Good luck to Pakistan. This news is the first step i.e. problem has been acknowledged. Hope that you all now succeed in arresting the rise and eventually reversing it.

Safe sex practices and education is the need of the hour. We have tried to keep quiet but failed. Now let us try to be more open, honest and educated. Here I am using the same logic that Imran Khan’s supporters use. We have to try something new called education.